Drug Lord: The Book

"The drug smuggling business goes on, the slaughtered dead pile up, the U.S. agencies continue to ratchet up their budgets, the prisons grow larger and all the real rules of the game are in this book, some kind of masterpiece." -- Charles Bowden

Tagged: kidnappings

(ABC) — Fed up with police corruption and drug gang violence, a number of communities in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero and neighboring areas have formed citizen police groups.

Effectively vigilante outfits with no allegiance — and often outright hostility — to elected authorities, they are grassroots attempts by locals to rein in lawlessness in some of the areas most wracked by killings, kidnappings, extortion and other malfeasance.

Such forces have multiplied in recent years as Guerrero has become more violent. The state saw 2,318 homicides last year as criminal gangs battled for territory or killed to intimidate victims.

For these citizen cops, being on duty can mean manning an impromptu roadblock to search vehicles for contraband, monitoring bars for nefarious activities or watching over rudimentary police stations complete with jail cells.

Patrolling on foot or in the back of a pickup truck, they are often armed with just rifles — a far cry from the high-caliber weapons used by Mexico’s drug cartels, police and military.http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ap-photos-mexico-vigilantes-groups-policing-towns-53463621

(BREITBART) — REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — The raging cartel violence in this border city resulted in 60 murders in November.

Rival factions of the Gulf Cartel continue their fight for control of drug trafficking territories and access to Texas. The 60 victims include military and police officers killed in shootouts as well as innocent civilians killed in the crossfire.

Breitbart Texas has been tracking the murders and executions that have been taking place in Reynosa since early May. At that time, two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel went to war for territorial control. Since May, the violence has left more than 324 victims. The fighting followed the death of former regional leader Juan Manuel “Toro” Loiza Salinas, a ruthless cartel boss who terrorized Reynosa for almost two years until he was gunned down by Mexican Marines.

After El Toro’s death, another Gulf Cartel commander named Petronilo “Panilo” Moreno Flores claimed control of the city. However, a faction claiming to be relatives and followers of the late leader led by Luis Alberto “Pelochas” Blanco Flores and Toro’s nephew Humberto “Betillo” Loza Mendez, who also went by the name of Alberto Salinas, have been fighting against Panilo’s forces.

The fighting resulted in fierce gun battles where convoys of gunmen clash along the city’s main avenues, those firefights have killed not only gunmen but also police officers and military personnel tasked with keeping the peace. The firefights also led to various innocent bystanders being killed or wounded by stray bullets.

The fighting between cartel forces also manifested itself in a dramatic increase in kidnappings and executions. As Breitbart’s Texas has reported, cartel gunmen have resorted to incinerating the bodies of their victims as well as to using shallow pits to dump the bodies of their rivals.

The most recent casualty took place on Friday early morning when a State police officer died in a gun battle. A squad of state cops was responding to a call of help from military forces who had been battling a team of gunmen. Two cartel gunmen also died during that clash in the Jarachinas Sur neighborhood.

(BREITBART) — REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — Gun battles, carjackings, and kidnappings continue to take place every day in this border city as two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel continue to fight for control.

In recent days, cartel gunmen targeted average citizens for daylight carjackings in their efforts to steal four-door SUVs. The teams of cartel gunmen stole trucks at gunpoint near the Anzalduas International Bridge, near the city’s downtown area.

Mexican law enforcement sources consulted by Breitbart Texas revealed that SUVs are a favored by cartel gunmen due to powerful engines; high clearances for dirt roads; and the four doors allow each gunman the ability to shoot in and out of the vehicle with relative ease. SUVs are used in large-scale gun battles along rural dirt roads or in the main city streets when rival cartel factions clash.

Mexican law enforcement officials have been targeting these convoys, many times finding them and clashing with them before the rival cartel factions meet. This has led to a large number of shootouts between law enforcement and cartel gunmen.

(BREITBART) — REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — The raging cartel war for control of this city resulted in at least 74 officially-counted murders. Many more victims have been incinerated just south of the Texas border.

In early May, Breitbart Texas began reporting on rival factions of the Gulf Cartel fighting for control of this border city. The continuing conflicts resulted in convoys of cartel gunmen roaming the streets looking for their rivals.

Overnight, cartel gunmen dumped a bloodied corpse with a posterboard where one cartel factions threatened their rivals. Bodies with warnings had not been seen previously in Reynosa. However, they are commonplace in Ciudad Victoria and in the border state of Nuevo Leon where Breitbart Texas has been reporting Los Zetas and other cartels are also carrying out massacres.

The violence spiked in early May, shortly after Mexican authorities killed former Gulf Cartel boss Juan Manuel “Toro” Loiza Salinas in late April. His death led to a power vacuum where his former allies are trying to fight off the another faction that appears to be favored by other cartel leaders. The ongoing fighting has led to a spike in highway robberies, armed robberies, kidnappings, and extortions as cartel commanders continue to look for ways to fund their ongoing war.

The raging violence by the Gulf Cartel immediately south of the Texas border led to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) issuing an alert to agents that they represent regarding the cartel war just south of the border, Breitbart Texas reported.

The NBPC warned federal agents about the constant gun battles and the possibility of spillover violence or stray rounds fired in Mexico landing in Texas.